His physiological preference

Yang Zhiyan watched him accept the card and thought to herself, "He doesn't like owing people favors."

Just like she cooks, he washes the dishes.

When the waiter returned the card, Qin Yuzheng took it and stood up.

"Let's go."

When the two walked out of the restaurant, it was completely dark outside. The streetlights were on, and the shadows of the sycamore trees fell to the ground, swaying in the wind as if they were alive. There was a damp smell in the air, as if it were about to rain.

"Would you like to take a walk around East Lake?" Qin Yuzheng asked, "to help digest your food."

Yang Zhiyan hesitated for a moment. It was past eight o'clock, and she had to go to work tomorrow, but she had eaten too much and really needed to walk around.

"Okay," she said.

East Lake wasn't far from the restaurant, just a five-minute drive. Qin Yuzheng parked the car in the lakeside parking lot, and the two of them strolled slowly along the lakeside path.

Across the lake lies Haicheng's CBD, a skyline of towering buildings, brightly lit. Those lights, reflected on the lake's surface, are shattered by the gentle breeze, transforming into fragments of gold that ripple softly across the water.

In the distance, there is an arched bridge, its light strips outlining the arch shape and reflected in the water.

Yang Zhiyan walked slowly, and Qin Yuzheng also walked slowly. Their paces unconsciously synchronized.

The two walked around the lake, chatting as they went. Time flew by, and they were both in a wonderful mood.

"Thank you, Brother Qin," she said.

"What are you thanking me for?"

"Thank you for treating me to dinner tonight," she said, looking at him. The light from the streetlamp reflected in her eyes like tiny stars. "Thank you for taking me for a walk by the lake. I was in a bad mood today, but I feel better now."

Qin Yuzheng looked at the light in her eyes, and something in his heart softened.

"Next time you're in a bad mood," he said, "you can come to me."

Yang Zhiyan looked at him and blinked.

"I'm always here," he added, "right across the street."

Yang Zhiyan smiled happily; indeed, a close neighbor is worse than a distant relative. She would cherish their neighborly relationship and help each other.

It was almost ten o'clock when the two walked back to the parking lot. Qin Yuzheng started the car and drove out of the parking lot. The car stereo was on, playing an old song with a deep male voice and a soothing melody.

Yang Zhiyan leaned back in the passenger seat, tilting her head to look out the window. The street scene outside was receding.

The car drove into the underground parking lot of Shengshi Tianxi and turned off the engine. The two people unbuckled their seatbelts, opened the car doors simultaneously, and closed them at the same time.

We took the elevator together to the 22nd floor and said goodnight to each other.

Yang Zhiyan thought today was a really pleasant day.

Qin Yuzheng thought to himself, "Perfect timing, we went out for a romantic French meal." Mu Chengzhen really had good taste; calling her "sister-in-law" was exceptionally appropriate.

For the next month or so, Haicheng entered the dog days of summer.

The weather was sweltering, like a sauna, with a visible heatwave emanating from the asphalt road. Cicadas chirped incessantly from morning till night, driving everyone crazy with their noise. But Yang Zhiyan felt that this summer passed exceptionally quickly.

We meet for meals two to three times a week, sometimes at her house, sometimes outside.

The way the two got along gradually changed from being polite and reserved at the beginning to a natural understanding. When she was chopping vegetables, he would stand next to her and hand her the seasonings. When he was washing dishes, she would stand next to him and wipe the dishes.

Yang Zhiyan was not a talkative person, and Qin Yuzheng was usually a man of few words who was used to giving orders.

But they got along exceptionally well, always having endless topics to discuss and never running out of things to say. Even in quiet moments, they were both perfectly content. They both thoroughly enjoyed this atmosphere.

Sometimes she would be making cheongsams at her worktable while he sat on the sofa reading documents.

The two of them went about their own business, without disturbing each other, but every now and then, one of them would look up in the other's direction. Their eyes would meet, they would smile, and then each would look away and continue with their own thing.

That feeling was strange.

They weren't in a romantic relationship. They never held hands, never kissed, and never said anything that crossed the line of "friends."

But that feeling is even more tantalizing than being in love; it's a bit like the ambiguous stage of a relationship.

Last Wednesday, after the two finished eating, Yang Zhiyan was washing dishes in the kitchen while Qin Yuzheng stood next to her wiping plates.

Her hair slipped down from behind her ears, falling to the side of her face and obscuring her vision. She brushed it aside with the back of her hand, but the hair slipped down again. Just as she was about to brush it aside again, a hand reached out from the side—long, dry, with calloused fingertips.

That hand took a strand of hair and gently tucked it behind her ear.

When my fingertips brushed against her earlobe, the heat spread from her ear throughout her body, as if someone had set a fire inside her, burning from the soles of her feet to the top of her head.

She froze in front of the sink, the bowl in her hand almost slipping from her grasp. He said nothing, straightened his hair, and continued wiping the dishes as if nothing had happened.

Yang Zhiyan looked down at the foam in the sink, her ears burning hot enough to fry an egg.

A few days ago, she was eating out and got some sauce on the corner of her mouth while eating barbecue, but she didn't notice it.

A tissue was handed to her from across the way, followed by the warmth of a hand. His thumb gently wiped the sauce from the corner of her mouth through the tissue.

They worked quickly and wiped her clean before Yang Zhiyan could even react.

She paused for three seconds, then lowered her head and said "thank you" in a voice so soft it was like a mosquito's buzz.

He said "You're welcome," his tone flat, yet seemingly restrained.

More than friends, but not quite lovers.

Eight words perfectly describe their current relationship. It's like a pot of water on a stove, boiled for a long time, with fine bubbles rising from the bottom and the surface trembling slightly, ready to boil at any moment. But it's just missing that final spark.

Who needs to speak first?

On the second Friday of August, Yang Zhiyan was drawing at her workbench, thinking about what to eat that night.

So he texted Qin Yuzheng: "Want to have dinner together tonight?"

Qin Yuzheng: Sorry, I have something to do tonight, I'll do it another day.

Yang Zhiyan looked at the message, paused her finger on the screen for a moment, and typed "It's okay" before sending it.

She put down her phone and continued drawing. The pencil scratched on the paper. Halfway through the line drawing, she stopped and realized that she had drawn the neckline crooked.

She put down her pencil, picked up her phone, and scrolled to "Jiang Siya" in her contacts.

"Siya, are you free tonight? Let's have dinner together."

Jiang Siya replied instantly: "Yes, yes, yes! I'm going crazy from all these blind dates, I desperately need to vent!"

"Where should we eat?"

"I know a really popular BBQ restaurant, the wait is usually two hours. But a friend of mine works there and saved me a table. Can you get there by six o'clock?"

"able."

At 6:10, Yang Zhiyan arrived at the barbecue restaurant.

The shop is located in an alley in the city center, but it's always crowded. A row of customers sit outside, waiting for a table, holding number tags and idly scrolling through their phones.

The air was thick with the aroma of grilled meat and charred charcoal, a rich and lingering scent. Waiters weaved through the crowd with trays of sizzling, oily meat slices and bubbling cold noodle soup.

Jiang Siya had already taken a seat and was waving at her from a four-person table against the wall.

"Here, here!" Jiang Siya was wearing a bright yellow dress, her hair was tied in a high ponytail, and she wore a pair of large hoop earrings. She looked like a walking lemon, sour and eye-catching.

Yang Zhiyan squeezed through the crowd, sat down, and placed her bag on the chair next to her.

"Have you ordered yet?" she asked.

"I ordered. I ordered your favorite beef brisket and pork neck, as well as spicy stir-fried rice cakes and soybean paste soup." Jiang Siya poured her a cup of barley tea, the aroma of barley filling the air and the white steam rising upwards.

The meat arrived quickly. It sizzled on the grill, oil splattering and landing on the charcoal fire, creating small flames. Jiang Siya skillfully flipped the meat slices with tongs, her movements practiced and showing she had plenty of experience.

"Let me tell you," Jiang Siya picked up a piece of grilled beef brisket, dipped it in sauce, wrapped it in lettuce, stuffed it into her mouth, chewed it a couple of times, and began to speak, her voice muffled as if she had something in her mouth, "My mom has gone crazy lately."

"What's wrong?" Yang Zhiyan also picked up a piece of meat, without wrapping it in cabbage, and ate it directly with the sauce.

"They arrange blind dates every day," Jiang Siya said, holding up three fingers. "Three last week, four this week already. And one more tomorrow."

Yang Zhiyan looked at her with sympathy.

"Do you know how bizarre that was yesterday?" Jiang Siya put down her chopsticks and gestured with her hands to indicate the name.

"As soon as I sat down, before I even had a chance to warm my seat, he asked me, 'Are you an only child?' I said yes. He said, 'That's great, your parents' house will be ours in the future.' Can you believe what he said?"

Yang Zhiyan had a piece of meat in her mouth and almost choked.

"And there's something even more outrageous," Jiang Siya said, taking a sip of barley tea. "The guy from the other day, he came right off the bat saying he absolutely had to have a son, and he wouldn't stop until he had one. I said, 'What if you can't have a son?' He replied, 'It's impossible for me not to have one; my mom had eight.'"

Yang Zhiyan finally swallowed the piece of meat.

"The last greasy guy my sister-in-law introduced me to also wanted me to have three sons," she said.

"What?" Jiang Siya's eyes widened. "Three? Three? Does he think he's the emperor?"

"Civil servants, in ancient times, meant officials, and officials needed sons to carry on their family line."

Jiang Siya paused for a second, then burst into laughter. Her laughter was so loud that several customers at nearby tables turned to look. She didn't care; tears streamed down her face as she laughed, wiping them from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Zhiyan, do you think we owed someone something in our past lives, and we're here to collect all these weirdos in this one?"

Yang Zhiyan smiled and clinked her barley tea cup with hers.

The two cups clinked together, making a crisp sound.

The meat on the grill was almost cooked, so Jiang Siya flipped it over. The meat slices curled up on the charcoal fire, their edges slightly browned, and the sizzling sound was like an endless song.

Yang Zhiyan wrapped a piece of meat in lettuce, took a bite, and the crisp lettuce and scalding hot meat met in her mouth, the juice overflowing and making her gasp.

"By the way," Jiang Siya suddenly lowered her voice, her eyes gleaming with gossip, "how's things going with your high-ranking neighbor?"

Yang Zhiyan paused for a moment.

"What's wrong?" She picked up a piece of rice cake and chewed it slowly.

"Stop pretending," Jiang Siya pointed at her with her chopsticks, "I felt something was off when we ate at your house last time. The atmosphere between you two, how should I put it, was like two magnets, almost attracted to each other, but there was a piece of paper between them."

Yang Zhiyan swallowed the rice cake, picked up the barley tea and took a sip, without saying a word.

"Tell me the truth," Jiang Siya put down her chopsticks, crossed her hands and rested her chin on them, looking at her, "What exactly is your relationship?"